At the Institute for Bible Translation we are always reflecting upon the importance of translating the Bible into people’s “heart language”. But what do we usually think of when we speak about one’s heart language? The first idea that comes to mind is that this is the language that a person speaks in his or her daily life, the language that is the easiest and most natural one for conveying meaning to other people. It is interesting that the more we talk with representatives of different people groups and cultures who are working with IBT in Bible translation or Scripture engagement, the more this seemingly obvious picture becomes blurred and loses its defined contours. Surprisingly so! It seems more likely that the concept of “heart language” goes beyond the language itself and involves the whole cultural worldview and the layer of deepest emotions and childhood or even genetic memories...
In this newsletter we would like to share with you a fascinating story, which truly happened in one of our Muslim projects. We will not name this people group explicitly, so that the lives of our protagonists would not be endangered. Right now we have two translators in this project, let us call them Eve and Joseph (not their real names). But it was not always like this. Many years ago Eve was the only translator. She devoted 15 years of her life to Bible translation, though she is not a Christian. There are no known Christians among the representatives of her people group. Not even a single one. Like the majority of her kinspeople, she is from a Muslim background. She is a journalist and a good specialist in her mother tongue.
Winter 2015-2016 Newsletter on what is common between the Kyrgyz epic story and the Bible
Probably any nation or people group, or at least the majority of them, have their heroic epics, but only a few of them can claim that their national epic is rooted in Biblical history. One of those few is the Kyrgyz people. An IBT Kyrgyz translator shares what he finds in common between the Kyrgyz epic story and the Bible. “The Kyrgyz epic is the largest in the world and we have much pride in it. It is called “Manas”. I’ve come to the conclusion that some storylines in Manas can be traced back to Bible plots. For example...
When the Apostle Paul came to preach about Jesus and the resurrection in Athens, he was brought to the Areopagus, since “all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new” (Acts 17:21). By preaching in the Areopagus, Paul humbly implemented the idea of approaching people where they actually are, not where we as Christians would like them to be. People who are just seeking to hear something new are not necessarily seeking God, and there may in fact be just a few in a crowd who are truly ready to hear God. Nonetheless, Paul was not afraid of speaking in vain. He was simply doing the Lord’s work, and it was up to the Lord to do all the rest. There is no doubt that Paul was the most successful missionary among the Apostles.This principle of reaching people where they are was the foundation of the IBT seminar on Scripture Engagement in summer 2015...
If we take a look at the history of the Bashkir or Bashkort people (a Turkic people numbering over 1 million native speakers of the language, mostly in central Russia), we can see that what the Bashkirs themselves think about their roots is sometimes contradictory, with a mix of facts and legends. Some Bashkirs are convinced that the first mention of them as a people is found in the records of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who called their ancestors Argippeans, that is, “people who live at the foot of the mountains”. Others are more cautious and say that the ethnonym “Bashkort” first appeared only in Arab-Persian chronicles in the Middle Ages...
At the Institute for Bible Translation we are always reflecting upon the importance of translating the Bible into people’s “heart language”. But what do we usually think of when we speak about one’s heart language? The first idea that comes to mind is that this is the language that a person speaks in his or her daily life, the language that is the easiest and most natural one for conveying meaning to other people. It is interesting that the more we talk with representatives of different people groups and cultures who are working with IBT in Bible translation or Scripture engagement, the more this seemingly obvious picture becomes blurred and loses its defined contours. Surprisingly so! It seems more likely that the concept of “heart language” goes beyond the language itself and involves the whole cultural worldview and the layer of deepest emotions and childhood or even genetic memories...
In this newsletter we would like to share with you a fascinating story, which truly happened in one of our Muslim projects. We will not name this people group explicitly, so that the lives of our protagonists would not be endangered. Right now we have two translators in this project, let us call them Eve and Joseph (not their real names). But it was not always like this. Many years ago Eve was the only translator. She devoted 15 years of her life to Bible translation, though she is not a Christian. There are no known Christians among the representatives of her people group. Not even a single one. Like the majority of her kinspeople, she is from a Muslim background. She is a journalist and a good specialist in her mother tongue.
Probably any nation or people group, or at least the majority of them, have their heroic epics, but only a few of them can claim that their national epic is rooted in Biblical history. One of those few is the Kyrgyz people. An IBT 
When the Apostle Paul came to preach about Jesus and the resurrection in Athens, he was brought to the Areopagus, since “all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new” (Acts 17:21). By preaching in the Areopagus, Paul humbly implemented the idea of approaching people where they actually are, not where we as Christians would like them to be. People who are just seeking to hear something new are not necessarily seeking God, and there may in fact be just a few in a crowd who are truly ready to hear God. Nonetheless, Paul was not afraid of speaking in vain. He was simply doing the Lord’s work, and it was up to the Lord to do all the rest. There is no doubt that Paul was the most successful missionary among the Apostles.This principle of reaching people where they are was the foundation of the IBT seminar on Scripture Engagement in summer 2015...
If we take a look at the history of the Bashkir or Bashkort people (a Turkic people numbering over 1 million native speakers of the language, mostly in central Russia), we can see that what the Bashkirs themselves think about their roots is sometimes contradictory, with a mix of facts and legends. Some Bashkirs are convinced that the first mention of them as a people is found in the records of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who called their ancestors Argippeans, that is, “people who live at the foot of the mountains”. Others are more cautious and say that the ethnonym “Bashkort” first appeared only in Arab-Persian chronicles in the Middle Ages...